The peace process, cont.

To almost nobody’s surprise, peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, brokered by the United States, are on the verge of collapse. This fact hardly brings an end to the matter.Israel failed...

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Posted Apr. 6, 2014 @ 12:01 am

To almost nobody’s surprise, peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, brokered by the United States, are on the verge of collapse. This fact hardly brings an end to the matter.

Israel failed to release hundreds of jailed Palestinians, citing a lack of progress in the talks, so the PA has begun a campaign to join a host of U.N.-related agencies that was to have been deferred until after the talks. Secretary of State John Kerry floated the idea of releasing convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard (up for parole in 2015) to get things back on track, but without success.

“Both parties,” he said, “say they want to continue to try to find a way forward.”

The way forward for the PA now seems to be using its new observer status at the United Nations to join the agencies, and to pressure Israel through economic, cultural and academic boycotts and the like.

The U.S. rightly vetoed the PA’s bid in 2012 for membership in the U.N. General Assembly. Washington sees such efforts as a threat to diplomacy that could bring about a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian standoff.

We would like to see the Palestinians join the U.N. and other world bodies, but only after becoming a legitimate nation-state dedicated to improving the lives of its people and living in peace with its neighbors. This requires settling questions such as the desire of Palestinians to return to Israel, Israeli settlements in occupied territories, and especially the mutual acceptance of each other’s right to exist.

Such acceptance, which has certainly not been forthcoming from the Palestinian side, would probably lead fairly swiftly to solutions on the other matters.

Almost every nation on the globe exists through some taking of land. The creation of Israel by vote of the U.N. in 1948, after the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews in World War II, may have been among the fairest in history.

Two states were created then, Israel and Palestine. Rather than accept this, a coalition of Arab nations attacked Israel but were repulsed. Thousands of Palestinians became refugees because of this Arab military attack, not because they were ejected by Israel.

It is in the Palestinians’ power to achieve legitimate statehood, though politicians would have to make concessions that would be bitterly opposed by many Palestinians. America cannot embrace any plan that threatens Israel, but it should continue to work to nudge both sides along.